ICARS’ funding partners are two-fold:
Strategic Funding Partners
Governments and foundations that commit to a 3+ year engagement and provide a multi-year financial contribution are called Strategic Funding Partners. With a shared commitment to ICARS’ goals and objectives, these partners are invited to contribute to ICARS’ strategic direction through a seat on the Board of Directors.
Government of Denmark
ICARS was initiated by the Danish government in late 2018 with a mission to partner with Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) to co-develop sustainable solutions to tackle AMR. In November 2021, ICARS evolved from an organisation embedded in the Danish Ministry of Health into an independent organisation with its own legal identity in accordance with Danish law, governed by an international Board of Directors. The Danish government remains ICARS’ largest source of core funding.
Wellcome
In March 2024, Wellcome committed USD 8.2 million (DKK 57.55 million) to ICARS over a period of five years to intensify our efforts in the African region. This partnership will advance countries’ AMR National Action Plan implementation by developing, in partnerships with ministries and local stakeholders, sustainable solutions informed by local contexts and needs. The funding, granted in collaboration with ReAct Africa will also help establish ICARS’ regional presence in Africa, a significant milestone of ICARS’ effort in mitigating the threats AMR poses to the African continent.
Funding Partners
Governments, international institutions, and foundations that provide earmarked funding for a specific project, geographic region or focus area are invited to participate in the ICARS Strategic Advisory Forum.
United Kingdom’s Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), Global AMR Innovation Fund (GAMRIF)
ICARS and GAMRIF began partnering in October 2021, to support a project led by Porkcolombia to understand the barriers to uptake of diagnostic services in the Colombian Swine Industry. Since completion of this project, DHSC will support ICARS to fund scoping and research projects focused on climate change, gender, and equity within AMR. With funding from DHSC (1.8 million USD) and ICARS (500,000 USD), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) will lead the project from June 2024 to December 2026.
Joint Programming Initiative on AMR (JPIAMR)
In April 2022, the Joint Programming Initiative on AMR (JPIAMR) kickstarted 19 new One Health intervention and transmission projects to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) around the world. Each project supported through the ERA-Net JPIAMR ACTION call brings together a range of research partners from different countries and fields of expertise, to develop and test innovative AMR solutions and promote cross-border research on AMR. Through this call, ICARS has committed 1.7m Euro to fund six research groups from low- and middle-income countries, providing them with the opportunity to join larger cross-country consortia to tackle AMR across the One Health spectrum.
The Novo Nordisk Foundation
In January 2024, The Novo Nordisk Foundation committed a 470,000 USD one-year planning grant to ICARS to gain a detailed understanding of the current policy and health system context in LMICs to support the sustainable use of novel antibiotics. The preparatory activities include establishing partnerships with both public and private sectors at the national level, and working closely with AMR stakeholders on a global, regional, and local scale.
International Development Research Centre
In 2021, ICARS partnered with the International Development Research Centre to host a series of scoping roundtables to uncover gender and AMR research gaps. The knowledge from these expert discussions were then fed into a joint Request for Proposals, which resulted in the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa leading a one-year project to strengthen gender equality and social inclusion in LMICs across the AMR research continuum. From June 2024, through IDRC, the UK Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) will support ICARS to fund scoping and research projects focused on climate change, gender and equity within AMR.